What protests and actions are being organized to end the shut down?

January 10, 2019 3:26 PM

I'm having trouble finding information about protests and pressure tactics being used to help end the shut down. Does anyone know of anything? I'm assuming the main pressure tactics are getting the Democrats to hold strong for a clean bill with no wall funding, Republicans to fold and help pass legislation to over-ride a Trump veto, or for Trump to back down.

Are there plans to mobilize at shuttered/understaffed government offices around the country? (e.g. HUD, Park Service, FDA, etc.) Show up at Congressional district offices? Hound elected officials in public? I can't seem to find much.

MoveOn has a petition page. Indivisible is telling people to call their Senators.

I saw some union protests in the past, but I'm not seeing much in the future.

What groups are taking the lead in organizing and mobilizing people to pressure elected officials to get the government open again? How can people take action to get this resolved as quickly as possible? Does anyone have information?

posted by andoatnp to Law & Government (10 answers total)

Federal workers and others are protesting in DC and elsewhere. See #ShutdownProtest for more.
posted by caek at 3:53 PM on January 10, 2019

via Politico:

The American Federation of Government Employees is suing the Trump administration over the shutdown, as is the National Treasury Employees Union, and the AFL-CIO, federal workers and Democratic lawmakers are rallying Thursday at the union’s headquarters in D.C and walking to the White House.

posted by Little Dawn at 8:53 AM on January 11, 2019 [1 favorite]

also via Politico:

Virtually every segment of the aviation industry — from airlines to airports — is ramping up pressure on lawmakers and the White House to reopen the government, suggesting that a prolonged shutdown could seriously harm passengers and business.

Air traffic controllers and other aviation industry workers reinforced the point with a rally outside the Capitol on Thursday, saying safety suffers when air traffic controllers, baggage screeners and Federal Aviation Administration technicians and inspectors are either furloughed or forced to work without pay as the shutdown enters its third week.

[...] They were joined by several members of Congress, including two Republicans — Reps. Pete King of New York and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania — who said they would vote with Democrats to reopen the government Thursday.

Rep. David Price (D-N.C.), who chairs the House’s transportation spending panel, noted that the rally brought together general aviation, commercial airlines, the drone industry, air traffic controllers, safety specialists, flight attendants and others.

“You know sometimes you don’t agree on everything, but you sure do agree on this,” Price said.

posted by Little Dawn at 9:14 AM on January 11, 2019 [1 favorite]

via the Associated Press:

The number of airport security screeners failing to show up for work around the country is soaring as the partial government shutdown goes into its fourth week.

No-shows among screeners jumped Sunday and again Monday, when the Transportation Security Administration reported a national absence rate of 7.6 percent compared with 3.2 percent on a comparable day a year ago. Monday marked the first business day after screeners did not receive a paycheck for the first time since the shutdown began.

posted by Little Dawn at 6:57 PM on January 14, 2019

via Politico:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has circulated a draft letter to other trade associations that it plans to send to President Donald Trump and members of Congress urging them to “immediately take steps to restore the full operation of the federal government.”

[...] The American Hotel & Lodging Association, meanwhile, sent an “action alert” to its members on Wednesday asking them to “urge your elected officials to work in a bipartisan fashion with the Administration to find a solution and end the shutdown.”

posted by Little Dawn at 9:00 AM on January 19, 2019

According to David Leonhardt at the NYT: The Shutdown Shows the Weakness of the Resistance

If this were happening in Europe, as Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago told me, people would be pouring into the streets. And yet in the United States, there has been nothing but a few small, scattered rallies.

Instead of lining up to protest, hundreds of federal workers in Washington lined up last week to eat at makeshift soup kitchens. The photos of them doing so were a study in powerlessness.

posted by Little Dawn at 10:45 PM on January 20, 2019 [1 favorite]

via WaPo:

IRS employees across the country — some in coordinated protest, others out of financial necessity — won’t be clocking in, according to Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, and several local union officials. The work action is widespread and includes employees from a processing center in Ogden, Utah, to the Brookhaven campus on New York’s Long Island.

The move is the leading edge of pushback from within the IRS, and it signals the potential for civil servants to take actions that could slow or cripple government functions as the shutdown’s political stalemate continues in Washington. U.S. Department of Agriculture meat inspectors have begun to call in sick, Transportation Security Administration sickouts at airports have been rising, and federal law enforcement agencies say the shutdown is increasing stress among agents and affecting investigations.

posted by Little Dawn at 8:21 PM on January 22, 2019

via WaPo:

On the 33rd day of a partial government shutdown that has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers without pay, some staged a sit-in Wednesday outside the offices of the senators they blame for helping to keep the government closed.

The protest, led by union leaders from the National Federation of Federal Employees, was meant to draw attention to the plight of federal workers — many of whom have had to dig into their savings, take on side jobs and seek help from food banks and other charitable programs to stay afloat.

Twelve protesters, many of them union leaders, were arrested Wednesday.

posted by Little Dawn at 1:03 PM on January 23, 2019

via the Guardian:

Union leaders representing air traffic controllers, pilots and flight attendants issued an urgent warning on Wednesday that the month-long government shutdown was threatening the safety and security of the nation’s air travel system.

“We cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break,” the union leaders wrote. “It is unprecedented.”

In the joint statement, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association president, Paul Rinaldi, the Air Line Pilots Association president, Joe DePete, and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA president, Sara Nelson, described a “growing concern for the safety and security of our members, our airlines, and the traveling public due to the government shutdown”.

posted by Little Dawn at 6:33 AM on January 24, 2019

via the Guardian:

In a letter to President Trump today, Nathan Catura, who heads the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, expressed just how dire the shutdown has been for workers who have now gone without pay for more than a month.

Describing the “perilous position” federal workers are facing, he writes that many are depending on GoFundMe pages and soup kitchens to get by. Citing that 27,000 federal agents and officers across 65 federal agencies are represented by his association and that all have had to work with no pay as their jobs are essential to national security, he called the shutdown reprehensible and asked the President to end it.

posted by Little Dawn at 5:46 PM on January 24, 2019